Rail Turkey En

Hello Onur have just found your terrific website. I live in Melbourne, love trains and travel to work on electric Metro and then DMU. Like many Australians I have been to Turkey (three times in my case), but have never travelled on Turkish trains – other than from Sirkeci out to the end of the line on the Metro – plus had a look at wonderful, wonderful Haydarpasa station on last visit (2012). Hoping to get back to your beautiful country next year – your information on train travel within Turkey is really excellent. Best wishes.

As is usual in Turkey, everything is arranged to suit the engineers building the project, and no thought whatsoever is given to the effect on the passengers and freight customers. TCDD project planning is a complete shambles. As if destroying the railways into Istanbul for several years is not enough, now they plan to isolate Ankara too.I wonder if Konya to Karaman will reopen before Ankara closes?

What has been achieved with the IZBAN system is impressive, but the system is plagued by a problem common to many urban systems: long journeys (Aliağı to Alsancak, for example) are tedious with the many stops. This reminds me of what it is like travelling from Heathrow Airport to central London on the Piccadilly Line. There needs to be consideration for the provision of express/limited stop services and this will certainly be necessary to encourage tourists to use the IZBAN for places such as Selçuk and Bergama. The IZBAN is also a way to access Foca (combined with ESHOT bus services) but would be more attractive with an express service.